Forecast: 'Exodus' to Reign Supreme at the Box Office This Weekend
The Christmas movie season kicks off this weekend with Exodus: Gods and Kings, which will easily take first place away from The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1.
Meanwhile, Chris Rock's Top Five opens at 979 theaters and Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice debuts at five locations in New York and Los Angeles.
Playing at 3,503 theaters this weekend, Exodus: Gods and Kings is director Ridley Scott's big-budget retelling of the story of Exodus, which plays a significant role in most major religions (Moses is a prophet in Christianity, Judaism and Islam). The story has also been previously told on the big screen a handful of times: the most notable version is Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments, which was initially released in 1956 and starred Charleton Heston and Yul Brenner.
Scott's version features Christian Bale as Moses and Joel Edgerton as Ramses; Bale has built up a solid following over the past decade, though his name hasn't really been a big part of the marketing. Instead, Fox's aggressive campaign has focused on the movie's action—including a massive climactic battle during the parting of the Red Sea—and its state-of-the-art rendering of the 10 plagues. Ads have run consistently during Fox's NFL programming, which suggests that the studio is primarily targeting a male audience here.
Exodus arrives in theaters at the end of a good year for faith-based movies: Heaven is for Real, God's Not Dead and Son of God were all modestly-budgeted endeavors that over-performed at the domestic box office. The best comparison for Exodus, though, is Darren Aronofsky's Noah, which was also a big-budget studio spectacle focused on a well-known Old Testament story.
Noah opened to an impressive $43.7 million in March, though poor word-of-mouth caused it to fall off quickly on its way to a $101.2 million total. Exodus probably isn't going to match that opening: with potential moviegoers focused on holiday chores, December debuts are notoriously low. At the same time, though, December releases tend to have a strong multiple, and a $30-million-plus debut typically translates in to over $100 million total.
Fox is expecting an opening in the mid-$20-millions this weekend, which would put Exodus in the same ballpark as past December releases The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader ($24 million) and The Golden Compass ($25.8 million). With poor reviews (35 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) and tough competition in the next two weeks, it would be a very long road to $100 million from there.
As is the case with most big-budget effects-heavy productions, Exodus: Gods and Kings will probably do far better at the international box office. The movie has already earned $32.6 million from a handful of territories, including South Korea and Mexico (where it opened to $6.2 million and $4.5 million, respectively). Noah wound up with over $260 million overseas, which is a likely result for Exodus as well.
Continued with a look at 'Top Five' and 'Inherent Vice,' along with official weekend predictions >>
Discuss this story with fellow Box Office Mojo fans on Facebook. On Twitter, follow us at @boxofficemojo, and follow author Ray Subers at @raysubers.
Related Stories:
• Last Weekend's Report: 'Hunger Games' Leads One of the Worst Weekends of the Year
• Last Weekend's Forecast: 'Mockingjay' to Three-Peat On Quiet Post-Thanksgiving Weekend
Meanwhile, Chris Rock's Top Five opens at 979 theaters and Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice debuts at five locations in New York and Los Angeles.
Playing at 3,503 theaters this weekend, Exodus: Gods and Kings is director Ridley Scott's big-budget retelling of the story of Exodus, which plays a significant role in most major religions (Moses is a prophet in Christianity, Judaism and Islam). The story has also been previously told on the big screen a handful of times: the most notable version is Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments, which was initially released in 1956 and starred Charleton Heston and Yul Brenner.
Scott's version features Christian Bale as Moses and Joel Edgerton as Ramses; Bale has built up a solid following over the past decade, though his name hasn't really been a big part of the marketing. Instead, Fox's aggressive campaign has focused on the movie's action—including a massive climactic battle during the parting of the Red Sea—and its state-of-the-art rendering of the 10 plagues. Ads have run consistently during Fox's NFL programming, which suggests that the studio is primarily targeting a male audience here.
Exodus arrives in theaters at the end of a good year for faith-based movies: Heaven is for Real, God's Not Dead and Son of God were all modestly-budgeted endeavors that over-performed at the domestic box office. The best comparison for Exodus, though, is Darren Aronofsky's Noah, which was also a big-budget studio spectacle focused on a well-known Old Testament story.
Noah opened to an impressive $43.7 million in March, though poor word-of-mouth caused it to fall off quickly on its way to a $101.2 million total. Exodus probably isn't going to match that opening: with potential moviegoers focused on holiday chores, December debuts are notoriously low. At the same time, though, December releases tend to have a strong multiple, and a $30-million-plus debut typically translates in to over $100 million total.
Fox is expecting an opening in the mid-$20-millions this weekend, which would put Exodus in the same ballpark as past December releases The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader ($24 million) and The Golden Compass ($25.8 million). With poor reviews (35 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) and tough competition in the next two weeks, it would be a very long road to $100 million from there.
As is the case with most big-budget effects-heavy productions, Exodus: Gods and Kings will probably do far better at the international box office. The movie has already earned $32.6 million from a handful of territories, including South Korea and Mexico (where it opened to $6.2 million and $4.5 million, respectively). Noah wound up with over $260 million overseas, which is a likely result for Exodus as well.
Continued with a look at 'Top Five' and 'Inherent Vice,' along with official weekend predictions >>
Discuss this story with fellow Box Office Mojo fans on Facebook. On Twitter, follow us at @boxofficemojo, and follow author Ray Subers at @raysubers.
Related Stories:
• Last Weekend's Report: 'Hunger Games' Leads One of the Worst Weekends of the Year
• Last Weekend's Forecast: 'Mockingjay' to Three-Peat On Quiet Post-Thanksgiving Weekend
